


The New Normal

by pen_and_umbra



Category: Gentleman Jack (TV)
Genre: Accidental Voyeurism, Ann and Anne are newly married, Ann and Marian team up to vex Anne, Established Relationship, F/F, Marian is too nosy for her own good
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-04
Updated: 2019-10-04
Packaged: 2020-11-23 11:02:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,493
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20891048
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pen_and_umbra/pseuds/pen_and_umbra
Summary: It was the day when Marian’s world went decidedly off-kilter: Anne was wearing purple and Miss Walker sat at the Shibden Hall breakfast table. And then, an aimless stroll in the woods left Marian witnessing rather more than she had ever planned to see of her sister and her new wife.





	The New Normal

Her sister was wearing a purple cravat.  _ Purple! _

Marian’s world was decidedly off-kilter. Her sister, normally so impervious to light in her black garb and always with a monochrome cravat constricting her throat, was so very unlike herself this morning. There she sat, the infamous and infuriating Anne Lister, at the breakfast table of Shibden Hall like every other day - but wearing a patterned purple cravat. With a royal blue waistcoat, no less!

“Are you feeling all right?”, Marian blurted out.

“Hmm?” replied Anne, her thoughts obviously a thousand miles away and her fingers shifting restlessly on her teacup rim.

“You seem…  _ off _ this morning. And is that a new cravat?”

“It is new, indeed. We went shopping while we were in York,” Ann Walker supplied from Marian’s right side. ”Among other things.”

Marian turned to Miss Walker and smiled. It had been something of a surprise when Miss Walker had joined them at the breakfast table, but the servants had rallied with another chair and place setting in no time. And what a pleasant breakfast it had been! Before, she had taken Miss Walker to be a shy, young woman of little worldly knowledge, but clearly there was more to her than met the eye. During the morning repast, Miss Walker had offered her dry wit, amusing anecdotes and a smile that lit up the dark dining room. 

“However did you convince my sister to buy something that’s not black, I cannot imagine!”

“Oh, I can be very persuasive when I set my mind to it,” Miss Walker replied. 

“Is that so?” Anne challenged from across the table and picked up the butter dish.

“Well, you are wearing the cravat, are you not?” Miss Walker winked at Marian, leaned back in her chair, and adjusted the neckline of her voluminous blue dress.

Marian watched her sister watch Miss Walker. Anne’s fingers, ever full of nervous energy, were now tracing the contours of the butter knife, though her eyes were quite obviously roaming across the contours of Miss Walker’s cleavage. Marian rolled her eyes.

“So, Anne. Dear sister. What are your plans for to-day? Frightening some of our tenants further, or perhaps you wish to tear up more hedgerows with your bare hands?”

Marian heard Miss Walker stifle a giggle, but she focused fully on engaging her sister’s glare. Offering a saccharine smile to Anne, Marian smeared orange preserves on her third piece of bread. 

“Well, for your information, Marian,” Anne said and put the butter knife down on her plate with a clatter. There was an uncharacteristic sense of giddiness, or perhaps nervousness, in her manner. “Today is a most special day - in the afternoon, we shall go and pack Miss Walker’s essentials for her to move into Shibden Hall. I have decided the guest room on the upper landing shall henceforth be her room.”

“Really?” breathed Aunt Anne across the table. Two spots of pink appeared on her cheeks as she pressed her napkin to her lips. “How wonderful!”

“What?” gruffed Captain Lister.

“Miss Walker is moving in. Today,” Anne said louder, leaning towards their father. “She is to be my companion here at Shibden.”

Captain Lister harrumphed. “Crow Nest is a handsome house, Miss Walker. Whyever are you abandoning it to live in this old pile?”

Marian watched, amused, at her sister’s displeased moue; she had an exquisitely vicious mouth at most times, but this time she seemed speechless - perhaps to keep the peace in front of Miss Walker. Anne did, however, pick up her tea cup with rather too much force and the tea in it sloshed over the rim. 

“Oh, Anne can be very persuasive as well,” Miss Walker said in a light, laughing tone. She smiled at Captain Lister and then turned to Marian. “Though I will admit that I shall miss the gardens at Crow Nest. I do believe you also visited us all those years ago, did you not, Miss Marian? Did you see the gardens then?”

Marian smiled warmly. “I did, and I do recall the gardens quite fondly. Such a riot of colours, well-tended lawns, and that magnificent fountain! Sea-shells and frogs were the motifs, were they not?”

“Indeed! I recall being vaguely frightened of the enormous frogs in my youth, with their stony eyes and queer, splayed feet. The stuff of nightmares, they were.” 

“I can promise there will be no stone frogs at Shibden Hall,” Anne said, sounding pleased with herself.

“Well, it’s not like we have gardens in the first place,” Marian retorted and sipped her tea. She could see the storm gathering in her sister’s dark eyes. “More like… pastures.”

“Perhaps a cow-themed water feature, then? For the front lawn?”

Surprised, Marian glanced at Miss Walker. Her expression was pure innocence, but Marian could see the mischievous twinkle in her blue eyes, and this delighted her. Oh, she would enjoy having Miss Walker in residence at Shibden. 

“Oh, that would be lovely! Perhaps we could repurpose some cattle troughs for it?”

Miss Walker’s tinkling laugh was also delightful. “And some milking buckets!”

“Marian!” Anne barked, but there was no real malice in her voice. Her expression was shifting between horrified and endeared as she stared at Miss Walker. “Please do take care not to frighten Miss Walker away, especially today.”

“Oh, my dear Anne, do not worry,” Miss Walker said, leaned forward, and gestured towards the window with her tea cup. A cow mooed outside. “Or perhaps you think a sheep theme for a water feature would be more elegant?”

“Ann! For heaven’s sake!”

Marian laughed so hard she hiccuped and set her hand on top of Miss Walker’s left hand on the table. Miss Walker’s skin was cool and smooth; Marian felt a large, cold stone press into her palm. Lifting her hand up, Marian saw that it was a fabulous ring with an oval onyx stone, on Miss Walker’s ring finger. 

“Is - Is that...” Marian stammered. Her eyes snapped up to Miss Walker’s, who smiled shyly at her.

“Yes,” Miss Walker whispered. A delicate blush crept up from her cleavage.

Marian exhaled. She leaned back in her chair so hard that the back of it creaked in protest. Her sister, the damned smug bastard in her new, festive cravat and waistcoat, had observed the entire exchange and was now slouching in her damn tall chair and sipping at her probably now-cold tea in the most exaggerated, infuriatingly nonchalant manner possible. Marian squinted. There was a new ring on Anne’s finger as well.

_ She did it, _ Marian thought in a daze.  _ She actually did it. Good Lord.  _

During the ensuing lull in conversation, Marian heard her aunt’s suppressed coughs, the slurping sounds Captain Lister made with his tea, and the rustle of the expensive fabric of Miss Walker’s dress. She found herself staring at her sister, seeing her in a completely new light. Anne had always seemed so immune to matters of the heart, callous and calculating and headstrong, never to be swayed by emotions. And now, here she was, the fearsome mistress of Shibden Hall, gazing at Miss Walker in a manner that was… completely alien to Marian.

“Right,” Anne exclaimed and stood up with a loud scrape of the chair, startling everyone else. She checked her pocket watch. “I am off to see what the men have accomplished in terms of landscaping in Lower Brook Ing while I was away. A complete shambles, I imagine. Would you care to join me for a stroll outside, Miss Walker?”

“I would love to,” said Miss Walker breathily, and made her excuses from the table. 

“Joseph!” Anne bellowed as she strode out. “My hat and coat, and Miss Walker’s straw bonnet, if you please! When you’re done eating whatever it is that you’re undoubtedly eating. Tick tock!”

“Oh dear,” Aunt Anne said, wincing at the sudden loudness. 

Marian sighed. And in many ways, her sister had not changed at all.

\----------------

It was a glorious late spring day, full of the smell of fresh grass and the rich Yorkshire earth waking up to a season of growth. And the smell of manure, of course, but Marian neither minded nor cared. She stood on the front stoop of Shibden Hall, feeling pleasantly drowsy from breakfast, and inhaled the fragrant air. It promised a hot summer to come. 

Suddenly inspired, Marian went inside to fetch her pens and sketchbook, and a flask of water. With the items under her arm, she meandered from Shibden Hall down towards the meadows and Calf Croft. She paused at the start of a path and looked back at the front lawn, smiling at the memory of the breakfast conversation about water features. Oh yes, she would enjoy having Miss Walker at Shibden - if only to have a co-conspirator in irritating her sister into high dudgeon on a regular basis.

It was sowing weather, so landscaping work had paused for the weekend and all the tenants and labourers were at their fields, planting the new year’s crop. Hall Ing was quiet of other humans, so Marian had only the sound of running water and of forest animals as company as she sat down on a new bench set by the brook. She looked around. The flower beds were not yet at full bloom but already promised all the colours; the gently undulating long grass and a series of trellises set at an angle framed the brook view most beautifully. 

Marian nodded to herself and opened her sketchbook. Her sister, for all her faults, did have an eye for elevating her surroundings from nature’s chaos into attractive order. 

She spent a pleasant half an hour sketching the bend of the brook and the trees on the opposite shore, frowned at her drawing, and then closed her sketchbook. She needed more practice, but today was not the day when she had the patience for such things.

Stepping back to the path, constructed on her sister’s orders the previous year, it suddenly struck Marian that she had, in fact, never traversed the entire length of it. What was it that Anne had said she’d construct at the end of it? Marian squinted, trying to remember. A… shed? No, a  _ chaumière! _

Now intrigued, Marian took a swig of water and set off along the path again. 

The path wound around ancient trees and across the brook on numerous small bridges. All around, Marian could see the handiwork of the landscapers: small statues set at intersections, bushes trimmed to ornamental shapes, and trees pruned to frame attractive views or to form covered sections of the path. 

As she approached a bend in the path, Marian suddenly heard voices. A giggle. It was unmistakably Miss Walker. Marian hesitated. There was a copse of trees that hid her; she assumed that behind that bend in the path was the chaumière but all she could see was wisps of woodsmoke rising between the newly green leaves above.

Marian stepped closed and paused behind the largest of the trees by the path. Yes, she could definitely hear voices. Miss Walker and...of course. Anne.

”Should we not go inside?” she heard her sister say. There was a smile audible in her voice. 

”Oh pish, Anne! Where is your sense of adventure?”

Equal measures intrigued and surprised, Marian peeked around the tree.

Between the foliage, she could see that it was indeed Miss Walker and her sister, standing by a small, rustic hut. The thatched roof of the hut was topped by a slender chimney, from which a gentle curve of smoke drifted skywards. The air smelled of woodsmoke and oak moss, and the moist hay of the roof; the air was dappled with sunlight and the pale green of new leaves. It was a fairytale scene of wonder.

“Adventure, hmm? Whatever do you mean, my darling wife?”

At this, Marian’s eyes snapped from the trees back to Miss Walker and Anne. There was a peculiar tone to Anne’s voice, one Marian had not heard before. It was rough yet slippery, the voice of a practiced fiend.

As Marian watched, her sister grasped Miss Walker’s hips through her voluminous skirts and pushed her against the wall of the chaumière, right next to the rustic, rough-hewn door. Miss Walker undid that confounding purple cravat from Anne’s neck and tossed it aside with not a look. As she roughly pulled at Anne’s coat lapels, Marian felt distinctly scandalised at Miss Walker’s complete disregard for the upkeep of expensive attire.

Miss Walker managed to knock off Anne’s top hat and it landed on the ground at their feet. Marian did not notice this at all, because at the same time, her sister had grasped Miss Walker’s chin in a firm manner and kissed her on the mouth, quite roughly so.

Marian backed a step and grasped the oak in front of her. Its bark felt rough to her fingers, and rougher still when she rested her forehead against it. It was… scandalous. Yet, she could not walk away. This was her  _ sister _ , but also not her sister as she knew it. Trepidous and also intensely curious, Marian inched her head around the tree again.

Miss Walker had progressed in her singular disrobing. Anne’s collar was now undone and her coat was on the ground next to Miss Walker’s fetching straw bonnet. Anne’s back and broad shoulders flexed beneath her waistcoat and white shirt as she pushed her body against Miss Walker’s, hands firmly on Miss Walker’s hips. Miss Walker’s head was somewhere below Anne’s ear, hidden in the folds of her collar… and she was doing something to Anne’s neck that made her toss her head back and groan out loud.

Marian blinked slowly. She had certainly never heard that sound from her sister’s lips, ever. It was low and coarse and impatient, as if from a beast barely tamed within her.  _ Miss Walker! _ Marian was scandalised anew. 

Anne threaded her hand into Miss Walker’s hair at the back of her neck and pulled her head away, completely ruining Miss Walker’s hairdo in the process. She kissed Miss Walker roughly, one hand in hair and the other at Miss Walker’s thigh, squeezing hard.

“Are we really doing this here, Ann?”

Miss Walker laughed and then gasped, clearly delighted, as Anne pulled at her hair again. “ _ Au naturel,  _ as the French say.”

Anne’s smile had teeth. Her hand in Miss Walker’s hair tightened further, so that the tendons in Miss Walker’s neck stood out in stark relief. Anne’s other hand slid down and pulled a handful of blue skirt upwards. This revealed Miss Walker’s satin slippers and half the length of a stockinged shin. Anne’s thigh pressed the rest of the loose fabrics between Miss Walker’s legs. 

“Do you mean  _ in delicto, _ as the French also say?”

“I, oh, I thought that was the...” Miss Walker breathed, as Anne slid her lips along her jawline, ending at her throat. There, Anne skimmed her teeth along the taut tendons, ending at Miss Walker’s collarbone. “The Romans that said so. Mmm. Oh,  _ Anne...” _

Marian blinked again. And here was another sound she had never heard on anyone’s lips: her sister’s name, said in this thickly erotic, urgent manner. Exasperated, yes; fearful, often. But this? This was a completely novel variety to the name.

Anne’s hand shifted from Miss Walker’s hair to her throat. Not unkindly, but with a sure, firm grasp, she pressed Miss Walker’s head up and against the chaumière’s wall. Anne’s other hand, in the meanwhile, had bunched up the rest of Miss Walker’s dress and petticoats at her waist. Miss Walker’s white thigh flashed as Anne moved her hand underneath the dress.

Miss Walker’s hands grasped Anne’s shoulders white-knuckled, pulling her closer. Miss Walker was breathing rapidly, her shoulders and hips trembling under the assault of Anne’s hands and mouth. Anne’s hand was doing...something, unseen behind the many folds of the skirt between them.

“Anne, oh, please… please do not tease me so,” Miss Walker moaned and with one hand, guided Anne’s head away from her neck to look into her eyes. “I want you inside me.”

A low growl came from Anne, cut short by another bruising, open-mouthed kiss. 

Marian snapped out of her trance and turned, resting her back against the oak. She screwed her eyes tight shut but of course, that could not make her unhear the sounds - the breathy moans from Miss Walker, her sister’s heated whispers, and that mix of rustling fabric and something decidedly...wet. 

Focusing on breathing in through her nose and out through her mouth, Marian shook her head, with little effect. She gathered her things and, with shaky legs and as much stealth as she could muster, fled back up the path.

\----------------

The afternoon was a cacophony of trunks dropped on floors, heavy boots on stairs, and Anne’s barked commands that echoed angrily through the whole of Shibden Hall. Marian was so very glad she had escaped the melee unnoticed to the safety of the parlour. She tried to focus on a book but it was not working: she read the same page four times before she gave up. Then, she just listened to the muffled noises of Miss Walker moving in and looked at the vista beyond the windows, yet not seeing it at all.

A memory of her sister’s low groan came to Marian, unbidden, and she shifted on the sofa. Tamping hard down on the thought, she sighed. Her sister had, once again, found a completely new and novel way to vex her. How fitting. 

After an interminable hour, the noises died down and Marian heard a carriage depart the inner courtyard. The parlour door opened and her Aunt Anne stepped in, looking quite flustered.

“Is it done?”

Aunt Anne sighed heavily as she sat down on the opposite sofa. “The first six trunks, yes. Apparently, there’s more to come tomorrow.”

“How lovely,” Marian muttered and tossed her book on the floor.

“Well, it is,” Aunt Anne said and leaned back, smiling a watery smile.”What a wonderful girl, Miss Walker. So lovely at all times, full of light and life.”

“Yes, quite so. I do not understand what she sees in my dour, dark sibling.”

Aunt Anne’s smile broadened and a glint came to her eye. “Oh, I think they are well matched. Better than you might imagine, Marian. Miss Walker is quite the firecracker, I suspect.”

Marian’s mind’s eye flashed to Miss Walker, at the chaumière, imploring Anne to  _ not tease her so. _ A tic came to Marian’s eyelid and she pressed her hands to her eyes. 

“Will they,” Marian started, heard the tightness of her voice, and paused to take a deep breath. She took her hands off her face and looked at Aunt Anne. “Will they join us for dinner, do you think?”

Aunt Anne frowned and looked at the clock on the fireplace mantle. “Well. I have little knowledge of Miss Walker’s habits, and you know how your sister is.”

“Yes. I do indeed,” Marian muttered darkly as she got up. “I shall enquire. And perhaps persuade Miss Walker to encourage my sister to better her manners.”

“Perhaps,” Aunt Anne said, but there was no conviction in her voice.

With a sigh, Marian exited the parlour and took up the stairs. They were, of course, covered in muddy boot prints, but Marian chose to ignore the mess. At the end of the first floor landing, there was Anne’s bedroom and beside it, the guest room door. She lifted her hand to rap her knuckles on the door when she was again stopped by Miss Walker’s laughter.

However, this laughter was not the giggle she had heard in the woods. This was a breathless, throaty laugh of joy that ended in a sudden gasp. 

Marian frowned again in confusion, but that did not last long - for she again heard her sister speak in that rough, fiendish voice. The words were indistinct, but the tone was unmistakable. Equally unmistakable were the breathy moans that were Miss Walker, coming at pace with the sound of the guest bed’s headboard banging against the wall.

Marian leaned against the balustrade and lifted her eyes to the dark rafters of the ceiling. Her cheeks were burning up, and she did not know if it was fury, embarrassment, or disbelief churning inside her. Probably all of the above, she concluded. This,  _ this, _ was to be her life from here onwards. The new normal of Shibden Hall.

With shaky legs, she went back down to the parlour and sat down ungracefully.

“No,” she breathed, not daring to look at Aunt Anne in the eye. “No, I do not believe they will be joining us for dinner.”

“Oh, well. Perhaps tomorrow,” Aunt Anne said and refocused on the letter she was reading.

“Perhaps,” Marian murmured. She again opened her book and proceeded to read the same page for the fifth time.

**Author's Note:**

> The sequel to this is [**The Case of the Missing Handkerchiefs**](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20933576).


End file.
